Howard Kurtz at the Washington Post writes about “The Secret Selling of Sotomayor” by the White House using off-the-record briefings to push out their story anonymously. “Less than an hour after President Obama announced his Supreme Court nominee yesterday, two “senior administration officials” began holding forth for reporters on the virtues of Sonia Sotomayor.” This treatment as menials was the final straw for some in the press corps.
“We protest in the strongest terms the Obama administration’s frequent use of briefings done on a background basis . . . especially when the same officials briefing often appear ubiquitously on television shows with similar information,” said Jennifer Loven of the Associated Press, president of the White House Correspondents Association. She said this was particularly true on a Supreme Court nomination, “when the issue does not involve sensitive material such as national security information.”
Press Secretary Gibbs responded dismissively and with — some think — a hint of menace. “I’m not sure today is the day I’d make that argument,” Gibbs said. John Aloysius Farrell of US News and World Report characterized Gibb’s response this way. Nice business you got here, little lady. It would be a shame if anything were to happen to it. Farrell adds, “it couldn’t be a sign of arrogance, could it?”
Nah.
The Awakening Conscience (1853) is an oil-on-canvas painting by British artist William Holman Hunt, one of the founders of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, which depicts a young woman rising from her position in the lap of a man and gazing transfixed out of the window of a room. Initially the painting would appear to be one of a momentary disagreement between husband and wife, or brother and sister, but the title and a host of symbols within the painting make it clear that this is a mistress and her lover. … The mirror on the rear wall provides a tantalizing glimpse out of the scene. The window — opening out onto a spring garden, in direct contrast to the images of entrapment within the room — is flooded with sunlight. The woman’s face does not display a look of shock that she has been surprised with her lover; whatever attracts her is outside of both the room and her relationship. — Wikipedia
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